1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a technique for making transition of a screen to be displayed from among a plurality of screens according to a user's operation or the like.
2. Description of the Related Art
A digital apparatus is becoming increasingly multifunctional, so that a number of screens to be switched and displayed on a display device or the like as a graphical user interface (GUI) has increased. In recent years, a digital apparatus that switches several hundred to approximately thousand screens to display the screens on a display device has existed.
When a rule for switching a plurality of screens and displaying the screens on a display device or the like (hereinafter referred to as a screen transition rule) is set, a destination screen in a transition may not be uniquely determined for a particular input event such as an input operation by a user. More specifically, a complicated screen transition rule needs to be set.
A printer is taken as an example of the above described digital apparatus to specifically describe the complicated screen transition rule.
Generally, when a cover of the printer is opened, a screen notifying a user that the cover of the printer is opened is displayed on a display device or the like connected to the printer.
When a memory card having pictures recorded thereon is inserted into a memory card slot connected to the printer, a screen for displaying a list of the pictures recorded on the memory is displayed on the display device.
Even if the memory card is inserted in a similar manner to the above when the cover of the printer is opened as an exception, however, a screen notifying the user that the cover of the printer is opened is displayed on the display device. More specifically, the screen displayed on the display device is not switched to the screen for displaying the list of pictures recorded on the memory card.
When the cover of the printer is then closed, the screen is switched to the screen for displaying the list of pictures recorded on the memory card. This is because the user should be generally notified of information relating to opening and closing of the cover of the printer in preference to information relating to an image recorded on the memory card.
Thus, the complicated screen transition rule needs to be set in connection with the opening and closing of the cover of the printer, for example, for a particular input event such as insertion of the memory card.
Conventionally, the screen transition rule for a user interface (UI) has been installed in a programming language such as a C language.
When a hypertext markup language (HTML) is used, a rule for a screen transition (a page transition on the Web) can be described using an anchor tag (<a>). More specifically, the screen transition rule can be described in a markup language.
Conventionally, a technique for setting a correspondence between information representing each screen at a transition source, and an input event for making a screen transition and a screen (a screen at a transition destination) which is displayed when the input event occurs, has been discussed (e.g., Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2000-132295).
When a screen transition rule is set such that the screen is not switched even if the memory card is inserted with the cover of the printer opened, as described above, and the screen is switched to the screen for displaying the list of pictures recorded on the memory when the cover of the printer is closed, the following problems may arise.
If the screen transition rule is set for each of the screens at the transition source, conditions of the printer and input events for making the transition of screens, setting work becomes complicated when a number of screens to be switched and displayed on the display device is increased.
When the screen transition rule is installed in the conventional programming language, a large number of man-hours is required.